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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Critical thinking--Study and teaching; Science--Study and teaching;

Abstract

There has been limited research which specifically explores the effects of science achievement when teaching thinking skills in isolation to upper elementary students. There are many components of thinking skills; however, the present study deals specifically with the student responsibility aspect of thinking skills. Subjects are fifth- and sixth-grade science students enrolled in a small rural Midwestern school district. Students were divided into classes by the principal. There was an effort to equalize both classes academically. The student responsibility section of a thinking skills program, devised by the Area Education Agency 7, was used. A 2-week period at the beginning of the school year was devoted to this study. Students were broken down into an experimental and control group, for both the fifth and sixth grades. The control groups were involved in an unrelated Health Skills for Life unit, while the experimental group received the treatment for 4 days. After the first 4 days of school, both the experimental and control groups started the first chapter in the Merrill Publishing Company Science book. The experimental group was reminded of the treatment as they progressed through the chapter. At the conclusion of Chapter 1, all students received the posttest provided by the Merrill Publishing Company. Data were analyzed to determine what effect teaching thinking skills in isolation to fifth- and sixth-grade science students had upon achievement. Upon examination of data of this study, there was a slight increase. The comparison scores between the experimental and control group were not significant at the .05 level of confidence.

Year of Submission

1990

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Education

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

Mary Nan Aldridge

Second Advisor

Marvin O. Heller

Third Advisor

Cathy L. Thompson

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1990

Object Description

1 PDF file (48 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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